For any organization, large or small, growth is imperative to sustain. A company that does not grow over time eventually ceases to exist. Why? Simple really: atrophy — competitors will eventually gobble up the available new business, leaving only the existing client base to become stale. Growth is a paradigm that often seems elusive. But, there are many tested ways to adopt a growth trajectory that fits perfectly with the nature and type of the company. Here, we will discuss some such tips that any company may follow to scale up their business and walk on the road of growth.
First and foremost one must figure out who is the ideal customer. Each product or service has a potential set of consumers who stand to benefit the most from that product or service. Some products are extremely specific in terms of their target audience. For example, a welding machine is not for the layperson to use. On the other hand, categories like FMCG products are consumed by a wide swath of the population.
It is very much necessary to create a profile of the ideal customer based on their demographic and psychographic characteristics. Demographic parameters include age, gender, race, income, marital status, geographic location, etc. On the other hand, psychographic parameters may include details on hobbies, attitudes, beliefs, spending patterns, interests, etc.
While preparing the ideal consumer persona, it’s always best to go into as much depth as possible. Marketers often keep their parameters wide-ranging to include the maximum number of potential consumers. But on the contrary, the more effective thing to do is to become as specific as possible, especially during a launch. This helps to spend efficiently and get the best possible return from the marketing investment.
Once the correct subset of potential customers has been identified, the intention of the marketing strategy of the company should be to own the customers not simply acquire them.
Paid promotions on social media sites often help to acquire a lot of followers within a short period. Although it proves effective to build traction in the beginning, this strategy falls short in the long run. Moreover, social media platforms often modify their settings and their policies. These sudden shifts often make the marketing strategies of the company go ineffective to a large extent. Therefore, instead of relying too much on the whims of a third-party platform, it’s best to establish a direct connection with consumers through strategies like creating a mailing list. There are several mailing list provider services available in the market that help to build such mailing databases.
However, these mailings should add value to the lives of your customers. They should not be too frequent and yet not too irregular. A weekly newsletter with information that the consumer might find useful is a perfect way to initiate a non-intrusive e-mail communication strategy.
Growth marketers are often focused on the acquisition of new customers. Retention of the existing customer is an area where their strategies lose much traction. However, it is the loyal customer who drive growth in the long run.
An analysis of many company’s marketing strategies would show that their onboarding communication is excellent. However, once the onboarding is complete, the level of communication start to fall off. Resultantly, these customers start feeling disconnected and issues take longer to resolve. To effectively maintain the momentum of growth, companies must treat each of their customers as their first with the same swiftness they exhibited during onboarding.
Although establishing a native distribution channel is important, it takes time to organically build one. It is, therefore, an efficient option to leverage already established distribution channels that have readymade communities frequently engaging over the types of products and services that the consumers are interested. Many companies employ such executives whose job it is to interact with relevant communities in social engagement channels like Quora or Reddit.
Nothing works like the power of word of mouth. It’s the most reliable form of marketing your product where you need to spend next to nothing, and in return, get the maximum possible number of genuinely interested customers. Getting the good word out in the press is one of the most popular ways to start a wave of word of mouth rolling publicity.
Partnerships help to grow in areas where it otherwise would have taken much longer to build a reach a reputation. Companies often become too concerned about the accumulation of profit. Creating a network of profit-sharing partnerships with companies that provide complementing services or products is an effective way to grow consumer-base in a short period.
Practicing transparency in every-day operations is one of the most trusted ways to hack growth. Companies that grow publicly, grow fast. Today it is essential to keep the community aware of what the company is trying to achieve and how it is trying to achieve it.
Getting to know what the company is thinking for its place in the future, helps consumers to associate with a brand for the long term. It also creates a sense of intimacy and loyalty for the brand. Consumers identify with the brand and accept any drawbacks with an open mind.
Maintaining transparency also helps to make a company appear more human than its competitor. It helps in building goodwill that often helps in attracting investors. Investors feel safer and try to attach a fair share of the company’s goodwill towards their own brand as well.
With all these growth hacks in place, companies should keep in mind that there is no easy way to achieve sustainable growth. However, rigorously and honestly following these strategies, backed by data-driven interventions from time to time, unmistakably helps any company to grow no matter how strong the headwinds are.
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